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I had forgotten how amazing Shibasaki was. She's perfect on every level.

She was my favorite character by far in the noitaminA version. Shibasaki has the good fortune to be voiced by Sawashiro Miyuki. It's one of the first performances I heard from her, and I remember thinking she made Shibasaki come alive.

I had heard her voice Kurenai Shinkarou a year or so earlier, but she hid herself so well inside a boy's voice that I didn't make the connection between the two performances. Of course, she's now one of the top seiyuu.

The movie was at its best whenever it sheds more light on the history and circumstances that brought about the Media Betterment Act. It some ways, that helped to make the fictitious law seem more credible. It's certainly easy to see how a law like that could have been passed: For most Japanese, it wouldn't have made a material difference (they were probably not avid readers to begin with, for example). Then, there are those like the author at the centre of this movie, the proverbial man who didn't care "until They came for him, by which time there was no one left to help him".

I also liked how every character from the original series got his or her turn to shine, including the deaf girl featured in the DVD-only, special episode 13. Some characters had more prominent roles than others, though, and it's regrettable that Komaki was reduced to an essentially cameo role.

The movie sagged badly, however, in terms of overall plot development. Far too much time was devoted to portraying Kasahara and Dojo on uneventful guard duty. Those scenes were, to me, practically pointless. I would much preferred that the movie devoted some scenes to the court battles between the conservatives and Future Plan legislators who wanted to abolish censorship. Instead, we got a lot of highly implausible gunbattles, made even more so as we gradually learn that there are indeed strict — yet apparently contradictory — rules of engagement for both the Media Betterment Brigade and the Library Task Force.

Is this perhaps a flaw originating from the source material? I understand that the author, Hiro Arikawa, is a bit of a Japanese Self-Defence Force otaku. She was perhaps a bit too keen to highlight the prowess of the Library Task Force (modelled, as it is, on the JSDF) and therefore neglected to write more about the legal complexities of striking down the Media Betterment Act, as she conceived it?

All in all, I am ambivalent about the movie. There were a few high points, but they were all eventually worn down by a generally flat plot.